Last Night

I saw something last night that made me do some thinking. My girlfriend and I were driving back to my car from down town Pittsburgh. She lives uptown
near Mellon arena, which is located near Pittsburgh's infamous hill district which has been known for years as a hot spot for gang and drug related
activity. We were traveling down center avenue when 2 cop cars flew right past us with their lights on it was about 2AM. We waited for the Jakes to
pass and went to the bottom of the street to go toward the veterans street bridge.

What we saw next was disturbing. There were 5 cop cars, and 1 silver car. 4 of the cop cars were to the right on the street and one was to the left.
There were about 10 armed officers total. There was only one cop on the left side of the street and he had an M4 Carbine (Assault Rifle) pointed at
the silver car, if my girlfriend and I would of kept going we would have been in his line of fire.

On the right side of the street the rest of the cops had their pistols and rifles drawn. We backed up the car about 50 feet to get away from the scene
in case they started shooting. We pretty much had front row seats to what appeared to be a pretty hot situation going down. The two guys got out of
the silver car and the Cops rushed over to the car and threw the two men to the ground. They were 2 black men unarmed from what I could tell, I
assumed they were from up in the hill district.

Other cars behind us passed us up and went toward the scene so we followed them to cross the veterans street bridge. We got a closer look at the two
men that were just busted. They were wearing gold chains and lots of 'ice'. I knew from looking at them they had to be drug dealers. Your average
pety weed 'hustla does not have on that many jewels, they had to of been crack / coc aine dealers. They had fearless looks on their faces but
appeared to be shaken up from the excessive show of force. Listening to a lot of underground hip hop it hit me. These men that were just busted right
in front of me are the same type of men that Biggie Smalls, The Wu Tang Clan, 2 Pac and Nas always sing about because they were those type of made men
... the fearless type taking the chance of being shot or locked up every day to make paper. Thats how I knew I saw some real hood # go down but I was
just a bystander.

As we passed the scene my GF looked at me and seemed a little disturbed by what she had seen. She said to me that she thought it was a little
excessive for that many heavily armed cops to be there and for them to be using military issued firearms just a block from her apartment. I responded
jokingly with "Welcome to the New World Order" because in this day and age the police are not going to take any chances. If those men in that car
were armed and would have moved the wrong way they would of been swiss cheese. I am all for protecting our police officers and them taking every
precaution to stay safe but even I though it was a little much for two suspected armed men.

When I woke up the next morning I checked the news to see if there was a shooting or bust that went down in the area and there was nothing. It really
made me think how often does this really happen? My guess would be ever day in every city in America. Most of it probably does not make the news
because maybe the government does not want us to know what really goes down in our own city streets right here on American soil. I think this might be
why underground hip hop is so fascinating, because they speak of the real # that goes down thats not in the news.

Ever since the north Hollywood shoot out in 1997 patrol officers have been required in most states to be trained and equipped with assault rifles so I
was not surprised. The reason for this is because during the north Hollywood shoot out the patrol officers were out gunned by automatic assault rifles
with kevlar piercing rounds and SWAT was several hours away by the time SWAT got their the shoot out was over.

What has got me thinking about all that went down is, was it all really necessary? If you give the law enforcement the same firepower as the military
and the legal power to use it in what ever manner they like is that really constitutional? Ever since 911 it seems as if our Law Enforcement structure
in America has become a lot more militarized to deal with the 'potential' threat of terrorism. Think about this though, how many instances have
regular law enforcement officer had to kill a terrorist on American soil? Its a common belief in political philosophy that power corrupts but absolute
power corrupts absolutely. Perhaps the American government on every level state and federal have been given to much power to law enforcement. Not just
to the state police but the FBI, DEA, TSA, ATF and etc.

Conspiracy 'Dooms Dayer's' say that we live in a police state, I am not a conspiracy buff and for years I have debunked the 'police state' and
'NWO' theories. I have dismissed them as extreme libertarian and constitutionalist propaganda, but as it turns out maybe there is something to what
they have been saying all along. If our Law Enforcement found a loop whole around martial law who's to say they will not find more loop wholes in the
very system they created and what they may or may not do or have done with it.

According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College London, the U.S. currently has the largest documented prison population in
the world, both in absolute and proportional terms. We've got roughly 2.03 million people behind bars, or 701 per 100,000 population. China has the
second-largest number of prisoners (1.51 million, for a rate of 117 per 100,000), and Russia has the second-highest rate (606 per 100,000, for a total
of 865,000). Russia had the highest rate for years, but has released hundreds of thousands of prisoners since 1998; meanwhile the U.S. prison
population has grown by even more. Rounding out the top ten, with rates from 554 to 437, are Belarus, Bermuda (UK), Kazakhstan, the Virgin Islands
(U.S.), the Cayman Islands (UK), Turkmenistan, Belize, and Suriname, which you'll have to agree puts America in interesting company. South Africa, a
longtime star performer on the list, has dropped to 15th place (402) since the dismantling of apartheid.

Yup, everyone is in jail. Just think, if your a felon you can't have a job. That is 2 million people who are going to have a hard time finding work,
that are going to have to do something illegal to survive. 2 million reoffenders.

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